MANALAPAN -- A 71-year-old Monmouth County man was sentenced today to five years in prison for bilking a friend out of $1.3 million he claimed was used to buy a horse farm but was financing a check-kiting scheme, authorities said.

After a four-week trial, a jury in Freehold convicted Robert McDonald Sr., of Manalapan, on April 2 of theft by deception, two counts of bad checks and forgery in the complex six-year scam, said Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis Valentin. Today's sentencing comes eight months after his daughter Sally McDonald was ordered to serve 12 years in prison for her role in the fraud, the prosecutor said.

Scott Lituchy/The Star-LedgerMonmouth County Prosecutor Luis Valentin in a 2006 photo. Valentin today said a Monmouth County man was sentenced to five years in prison for bilking a friend out of $1.3 million he claimed was used to buy a horse farm but was financing a check-kiting scheme.

Valentin said McDonald "borrowed" money from an unidentified friend and business associate in 2000, allegedly to buy a horse farm in Kentucky, but used the money over the next six years to pay off overdrafts relating to bad checks he wrote against the Trust Company of New Jersey.

When the friend pressed McDonald for repayment of the loan, McDonald claimed the funds were frozen by a state court. Valentin said McDonald tried to bolster his claim by forging attorneys' letters, court orders, bank statements and wire transfers.

At her father's trial, Sally McDonald, 41, of Freehold, insisted she was responsible for the scam, but in convicting him, the jury rejected her claim. Also charged in the indictment, she pleaded guilty on June 2 to theft by deception and forgery and is serving a 12-year prison term imposed on Aug. 8. She has to serve six years of the term before becoming eligible for parole.